According to a spokesperson for the Department of Energy (DOE), the United States Department of Energy has decided not to accept the initial group of bids from oil corporations to replace the nation’s emergency crude oil stockpile with a minimal amount of oil in the month of February. The Department of Energy (DOE) announced a month ago that it planned to buy up to 3 million barrels of oil for delivery to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in February. This would be the first purchase made by the DOE since the release of a record 180 million barrels of oil from the SPR in December of last year in an effort to bring down the price of gasoline at the pump in the United States.
In an email response, a spokesman for the Department of Energy (DOE) announced that after reviewing the initial proposal, the agency will not be making any award selections for the February delivery window. “DOE will only choose offers that match the needed crude standards and that are at a price that is a good deal for taxpayers,” the official added. “DOE will not select any bids that do not fulfill these requirements.” It was not possible to obtain information regarding the submissions. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, which is when gasoline prices began to skyrocket, President Joe Biden had declared in late March that 180 million barrels of oil would be sold in an effort to bring prices back down. Russia is the largest fossil fuel exporter in the world. This sale brought the levels in the SPR down to their lowest point since 1984. The government has indicated that it is interested in repurchasing the oil at a price of approximately $70 per barrel.
